The Same
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Both Tony and Ironman are the same. Ironman is just a little more durable. Why can't anyone else see that? The rest of the Avengers have similar problems. Or maybe they don't?
1. Tony Stark

_This has been edited xx Please tell me if there are any more issues xx Read and review!_

Captain America had just given Tony another reason to loathe him. He hated people who couldn't realise. People who couldn't realise that Iron Man wasn't anything without Tony. That they weren't two separate people. They were the same. Iron Man was merely the physical embodiment of all of the things Tony was, the genius, the sarcasm, the heart kept tightly under lock and key.

Iron Man had shown Tony a way to express his feelings, to show them and no one could break a superhero. And Tony was Iron Man. And that meant they couldn't break him either.

With that realisation, his carefully constructed walls started to crumble.

And it hurt.

But he wouldn't break.

Pepper loved the idea of him expressing his feelings. It meant they were in a proper relationship, an equal one, a proper couple, not just his silent admiration from a safe distance and her silent adoration shown through her taking care of him. Pepper loved him. He loved her.

And maybe now, unlike before Afghanistan, he'd be able to say it.

Maybe one day they'd even settle down. But he didn't think either of them was suited to that life. Not yet.

Iron Man might be part of him but at the minute he was complicating his life.

It was a shame none of the others could see that Iron Man _was_ him. They treated them like two separate entities, like Bruce and the Hulk. But it wasn't like that. Tony controlled Iron Man.

Take the suit away and he was still Iron Man.

Just a little less able to do good in the world.


	2. Steve Rogers

**I decided that this would probably work as a second chapter, because it was something that occurred to me earlier today x Please read and review x**

People often forgot that Captain America was also Steve Rogers. Even his team seemed to forget, such as when Tony called him Cap even when they were just hanging around the tower, not in battle. When they were supposed to be friends.

But Captain America hadn't always existed. The Captain was so young, almost innocent to the world, brave, strong, a war hero. he was fearless, indomitable. He never gave up, was the embodiment of American values and purity.

Steve Rogers had made Captain America and he knew the cruelties of life, the harshness that hid in the alleyways. He knew what it was like to suffer, to be the weaker man. Steve Rogers knew what it was like to be the losing side, to take the punch and not be able to fight back against injustice.

People forgot that Steve wasn't always Captain America. He hadn't always been as he was now, muscled and tall and strong. He couldn't be a hero all the time, couldn't fight forever. Sometimes he was just Steve Rogers, who swore and occasionally thought about sex and was rude and generally not at all what he was expected to be.

Steve Rogers and Captain America were different people.

Captain America was Steve Rogers. But Steve Rogers wasn't Captain America.

But no one else seemed to see that.


	3. Bruce Banner

**Chapter 3, for Bruce x I don't know if I'd do the other Avengers yet, I've kind of gone done all the possible avenues for me to write about x Please read and review x**

He_ is_ the Hulk.

The Hulk lives inside him, hiding beneath the surface, barely controlled. His eyes turn free and his skin tinges more often than not.

The Hulk is the physical embodiment of his rage, the rage that is inside him, clawing to get out. The hatred of everything, and his urge to destroy it, to watch it smash.

He hated it for what it reminds him of, his father, his mother, the darkness of the nights and the whimpering of a child. It's a reminder of how badly his father screwed him up, how angry he is at the world.

It is his anger at the world.

He is the monster his father always told him he was; he can feel it shifting restlessly beneath his skin, festering like an open wound until it tears what's left of him open. The wounds bleed and drain away any happiness of his life with them - Betty, the job he adored, the life he'd built for himself.

The Hulk has cost him everything.

And they are the same person, in different skins. It is as much a mask as Tony's, only Bruce is the mask and the Hulk is him laid bare.

He is the monster.

He hates the Hulk, hates himself.

And he's willing to kill himself so that he doesn't.


	4. Natasha Romanoff

Unlike Bruce, Natasha is proud of the fact that she is the Black Widow. She says it like that because it's like the Black Widow is an alter ego or something, because the Widow would never find herself using sarcasm or deadpan looks or anything but violence no matter who she was talking to, whether it be Clint or Thor.

She has been trained to be better than that.

But as Natasha Romanoff she teases her team mates and throws Tony out of the lab and spars with Clint, as well as trying to help Steve get over his mental pictures of women being less durable on the front lines. She thinks that, maybe, she's managed it.

The Black Widow is what she becomes to defend them, something dark and inhuman, with no proper capacity for human feelings. She is merciless.

Because she knows that is how it has to be, to keep the very few she cares about safe and to wipe the red off her ledger.

She is Natasha Romanoff and the Black Widow and she knows how much she needs both of them to survive.


	5. Clint Barton

Clint Barton wasn't always the Hawkeye. Once upon a time he'd been a child, orphaned and failed by the system they had out him in, he and his brother fighting to stay alive.

When they had run away to join the circus though, they had needed protection, more so than the circus had been willing to provide.

Within two months he was known as Hawkeye, for his natural affinity with archery and the shots no one else could make. And whilst he was in the circus he would only survive as long as he was useful, as long as he was bringing in some money, especially as he got older.

Hawkeye was useful. Hawkeye was impressive. So when Clint was Hawkeye he had a roof over his head and food on the table and clothes on his back.

And that survived past the circus. He'd made his money as a gun for hire (or rather a bow), paid well because no one else could do what Hawkeye could.

Without Hawkeye, Clint Barton would have been dead on the streets, an orphaned runaway.

Instead he is alive and an Avenger. And he knows that now he has the chance to make up for some of what he did, and it was because of Hawkeye that he lived long enough to, even if it was Hawkeye's fault in the first place. He brought Natasha in, against his orders, and gave her a chance to redeem herself, to become more than she had been.

He has a second chance and he will do it right.

And he will always be grateful for that.


	6. Thor Odinson

**This is my last chapter for this story, I'm almost **_**certain**_**, but please read and review anyway xx**

Thor Odinson knows he isn't like any of the others on his team. He doesn't have to hide behind the mask, whatever that may be, and he's always very frank about who he is. He doesn't have layers and layers, personas that you have to peel away to see the person inside.

But in truth he hides behind Odinson more than he likes to realise.

And Loki can see that. Because Thor is truly Odin's son and he shows it, hiding behind his name and his place as Prince of Asgard.

It is his fall back for when things go wrong, even if he does it less now than before Midgard and the Avengers.

But really, Thor is the most normal one of the team - and considering he's an immortal God from outer space, that says a lot about the rest of the team. He knows exactly who he is, brash and bold and a little bit clueless, not quite knowing about Midgard customs.

But he's trying, and he's learning (or at least he would be, if Tony didn't sabotage their attempts by telling him that some people from Midgard didn't go out wearing their clothes either).

And with Thor what you see is what you get.


End file.
